Look.

In that corner." The robust form of Comrade Ossipon, striding brusque and shadowy across the shop, squatted in a corner obediently; but this obedience was without grace.

He fumbled nervously--and suddenly in the sound of a muttered curse the light behind the glazed door flicked out to a gasping, hysterical sigh of a woman.

Night, the inevitable reward of men's faithful labours on this earth, night had fallen on Mr Verloc, the tried revolutionist--"one of the old lot"-- the humble guardian of society; the invaluable Secret Agent [delta] of Baron Stott-Wartenheim's despatches; a servant of law and order, faithful, trusted, accurate, admirable, with perhaps one single amiable weakness: the idealistic belief in being loved for himself.
Ossipon groped his way back through the stuffy atmosphere, as black as ink now, to the counter.

The voice of Mrs Verloc, standing in the middle of the shop, vibrated after him in that blackness with a desperate protest.
"I will not be hanged, Tom.